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1. Is there a difference in value between the three 1-9 sets?

There are some of the more extravagant hands that you can only get with an specific tile, like the bamboo all green or the pin's big wheels, but other than that they are the same for practical purposes. I haven't checked all the thread to see if this link has been posted, but for more information on the types of hands you can get head here

I'm not sure if I understand the question, but 4 sets and 1 pair is the only winning combination with the sole exception of the Chiitoitsu (7 Pair) hand.

You can Riichi if your hand is completely closed (no calls), you have enough points, the game isn't in its last round and you're in Tenpai. You can't Riichi any other way, the hand must be completely closed.

Kokushi musō, isn't 4 sets 1 pair, is it not a winning yakuman hand?. The question is related to what Quarkboy already pointed out in the Saki thread. Namely, you need a yaku so that the hand is valid, hence riichi. Thus the question, is there a hint to getting a yaku? Looking at the duzen yaku/yakuman combinations on wikipedia I can't spot the sub pattern(s), yet.

JP Majong strategy and tactics are similar to Competition Bridge.
You use deduction as a tool to speculate the other competitor's hand and develop a hand accordingly to enheighten chance of finishing a hand while blocking others. You also need to bluff others so they evade in trying to develop a high ranking hand and/or lure them into throwing you winning block.
The objective is to end Hanchan with the most points NOT making high hands since there are bonus points given to the top dog at the end of Hanchan.

Kokushi musō, isn't 4 sets 1 pair, is it not a winning yakuman hand?. The question is related to what Quarkboy already pointed out in the Saki thread. Namely, you need a yaku so that the hand is valid, hence riichi. Thus the question, is there a hint to getting a yaku? Looking at the duzen yaku/yakuman combinations on wikipedia I can't spot the sub pattern(s), yet.

Thirteen Orphans is a winning yakuman hand and is the other exception.

And there is no pattern to the yaku. They are pretty much arbitrary based on things like "having" or "not having" something (Tan yao, chanta, etc), meeting a specific event sequence (haitei, rinshan kaihou, riichi), having a certain set of tiles (the dragons, the prevailing wind, your own wind, etc), or having something that is extremely unlikely (all greens, thirteen orphans, etc).

The only thing is you can turn any 4 sets of 3 and a pair into a yaku with riichi, but it must be closed. Once you are dealing with an open hand, you are heavily restricted.

Being able to predict what a person is aiming for doesn't make it easy for you to win with a hand and that is the point to mahjong anyway, you try create situations where you can set up a win that gives a minimal chance to others. I can deny others of the tiles that they need but how does my hand come about then if that is all I'm concentrating on. I have said that doing a "3 fan minimum" ups the game a little but that doesn't mean that you limit your own options to anything but the pure minimum ending hands. Outside factors like collecting your own wind tiles and whether you have any flower tiles come into play that complicates matters so even a cheap 1 fan chow only hand can win if you satisfy other conditions.

It makes it tough to win, but tough to lose as well. The opposite is true for very loose to no rules; easy to win, easy to lose.

With a 3 fan minimum, it becomes very easy to defend. The only open hands that could quality under those restrictions are Hon Itsu Toi Toi, Toi Toi + Fanpai, Chin Itsu or Sanshoku Jun Chan. So, as soon as someone calls something it becomes easy to not deal into their hands.

Defense is more important in Japanese mahjong than other gambling games, and that's a cardinal rule tough to drill into people. Especially the "experts". People want to show off with big hands...it's almost human nature. So they get hasty and end up dealing into another person's big hand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deathkillz

ps...saiGAR 2008? you need a new message change

I disable signatures so I'm often unaware of what's lurking there. I'm at a loss of what to put both here and AP, there's not a lot happening right now worth advertising.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cats

Kokushi musō, isn't 4 sets 1 pair, is it not a winning yakuman hand?. The question is related to what Quarkboy already pointed out in the Saki thread. Namely, you need a yaku so that the hand is valid, hence riichi.

Typically the rarer the hand, the more value it has. But stuff like Jun Chan, Chanta, Sanshoku aren't things one would normally aim for, since they are tough to get and are not worth that much. They are more of a lucky coincidence sort of yaku that improves an already standard hand.

By far, the most common hand in Japanese mahjong is the Pinfu. It's closed, can be combined well with dora, Tan Yao, Riichi and uradora. Easy mangan or haneman hand for most people, in 4P it's murder to deal into.

Next most common hand is anything + Yakuhai. Then Toi Toi comes third.

__________________

HOLY CRACKERS! SAIGAR 2008 IS HERE!
Nominations are open 19 November ~ 23 December 2007NOW!!
It's not a tournament without "men"!

The dead wall removes the possibility of "tile counting" since what tiles taken out of the game are random. This isn't the case in other variants which go until all tiles have been exhausted from the wall.

I'm asking if its accurate. I don't want to play against real people when I'm at total newb level. (lol)

GameDesign uses the about the same ruleset as found in Akagi, and it's almost the same ruleset found in Saki. The main difference is that it doesn't have the red 5 dora tiles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cats

1. Is there a difference in value between the three 1-9 sets?

There's only one real difference: a certain combination of Bamboo tiles can qualify as an "All Green" yakuman hand. In all other cases, all three suits are functionally the same.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cats

2. Is there a basic hint as to what I need so as to not be forced to fully conceal the hand and call riichi to win with a 1 toitsu 4 set?

What you need to do is to try to conceal your hand as much as possible. A concealed hand not only scores better than an open hand in most cases, but you're also eligible for other bonuses like extra yaku, declaring riichi, and so forth. The only time that you should ever take someone's discard is if you have a hand that already qualifies as a open-hand yaku, or if you think that you'll get in that situation (usually a yakuhai). If you're just starting out, it's probably best to hold out until you can declare riichi.

The main exception to this is if a hand is about to end, and you just want to get into tenpai (just one tile away from winning), so that you can grab some bonus points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cats

Kokushi musō, isn't 4 sets 1 pair, is it not a winning yakuman hand?. The question is related to what Quarkboy already pointed out in the Saki thread. Namely, you need a yaku so that the hand is valid, hence riichi. Thus the question, is there a hint to getting a yaku? Looking at the duzen yaku/yakuman combinations on wikipedia I can't spot the sub pattern(s), yet.

Please note that those combinations aren't part of some sort of sub pattern; they are a list of all the possible scoring hands, with variations for suit, etc. If you are playing, you should keep that list handy so that you have a good idea of what possible hands to go for, and when you can afford to pick up discards (and how to score tons of points!).

The kokushi musō hand is quite possibly the most special hand in Mahjong. As a yakuman hand, it's one of the two exceptions to requiring the 4-set rule. It's also the only hand where if you go for it, you're basically throwing away your chance at any other hand, so there's no way to bail from such an attempt. The other exception to the 4-set rule, the 7-pair hand, is nowhere nearly as dangerous since, if you have as many as five pairs, three pons will get you into tenpai. Kokushi musō is only the second-rarest hand of all, but even the rarest, the 9 Gates being far less common, is possible to break up into lesser hands with relative ease.

Given all of these drawbacks there are only two virtues with a kokushi musō hand: the first is that you're only likely to go for it if you are five tiles or less from tenpai. This would mean that you have a trash hand filled with honors and terminals that'd be useless for anything else. The second advantage is that it's virtually impossible to defend against without ruining one's chance of winning the hand, even if one knows that someone is going for it. That's because the pattern of discards is very difficult to read, and because there's a potential of a 13-tile tenpai wait (if you have exactly one of each honor and terminal).

Oh by the way, I managed to get one of these hands a little while ago, and it's an awesome feeling.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Secca

What's the dead wall? They serve any purpose?

It's the part of the wall that is the last to draw from. The dead wall serves three purposes: they indicate when the hand is over, dora indicators are picked from the dead wall, and any bonus tiles from a kong are picked from the far end of a dead wall. In any Mahjong ruleset which uses flowers, the flower bonus tiles are picked from here as well.

__________________

The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won...

Please note that those combinations aren't part of some sort of sub pattern; they are a list of all the possible scoring hands, with variations for suit, etc. If you are playing, you should keep that list handy so that you have a good idea of what possible hands to go for, and when you can afford to pick up discards (and how to score tons of points!).

The kokushi musō hand is quite possibly the most special hand in Mahjong. As a yakuman hand, it's one of the two exceptions to requiring the 4-set rule. It's also the only hand where if you go for it, you're basically throwing away your chance at any other hand, so there's no way to bail from such an attempt.

It really depends how far along you are. You can pretty easily bail if say, you have 10 of the 13, you have at least 1 pair, and it's early enough. (You can turn it into chanta rather easily.) Once you are at or near tenpai, it is almost impossible to bail.

Quote:

Kokushi musō is only the second-rarest hand of all, but even the rarest, the 9 Gates being far less common, is possible to break up into lesser hands with relative ease.

Is it really that rare? It's the most common yakuman that I've seen playing and the one that I've almost hit a number of times.

There are no flowers in the Japanese rulesets, so you should be fine with either Gamedesign or Tenhou.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cats

I'm sure I can memorize them, just a little busy right now.

Well, good luck to you .

Quote:

Originally Posted by bayoab

It really depends how far along you are. You can pretty easily bail if say, you have 10 of the 13, you have at least 1 pair, and it's early enough. (You can turn it into chanta rather easily.) Once you are at or near tenpai, it is almost impossible to bail.

If you are within three tiles of getting a kokushi musō tenpai, then you'd be at least some 8+ tiles from tenpai for any hand other than 7-pairs. That'd be an awful starting hand, and it'd be positively dreadful for a mid-game hand. With 17.5 draws per player per hand, halfway means that you'd get about 9 chances to get the exact 8 tiles you'd need. It's really an either or situation. The one good bit of news is that you'd probably have tons of safe tiles to discard .

Quote:

Originally Posted by bayoab

Is it really that rare? It's the most common yakuman that I've seen playing and the one that I've almost hit a number of times.

The most common yakuman by far should be sū ankō (four concealed three-of-a-kinds) with the rest being somewhat more uncommon, and so on with the nine gates and kokushi musō being the most uncommon. However, this is based on their odds of occurring, and that's what skews the statistics from the personal experience. There's a couple of reasons for this: as you approach tenpai for one of the other yakuman hands, you're probably very close to tenpai for easier hands to get, and so you can bail and get ron all that much quicker. Likewise, you're a lot more likely to see hands with lots of terminals/honors than hands with 6+ dragons in them and so forth, so it's a lot more likely that players go for kokushi musō when there's nothing else appealing in their hand. Still, sū ankō should be the most commonly encountered yakuman as it's the easiest to get.

__________________

The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won...

Tenhou's stats indeed rank the Suu An Kou as the most common Yakuman, followed by Dai San Gen and then Kokushi Musou. The Kokushi is actually a very common Yakuman, it's just harder to get because it is very obvious when someone aims for it.

The rarest Yakuman is the Suu Kantsu, using Akagi rules it is darn near impossible. With JPM it's just near impossible.

__________________

HOLY CRACKERS! SAIGAR 2008 IS HERE!
Nominations are open 19 November ~ 23 December 2007NOW!!
It's not a tournament without "men"!

You cant ron if you are waiting for a tile that you have discarded before.Example: You have 56 Characters, 234 567 88 Circles, 4x white dragon. You have discarded the 4 of characters before. If another player discards the 4 of characters, you cant ron.

But you can call tsumo with a previously discarded tile.

Dont ask me why they made that rule ;_; Thanks to Basaka and Teiran who explained the rule to me. <3

You cant ron if you are waiting for a tile that you have discarded before.Example: You have 56 Characters, 234 567 88 Circles, 4x white dragon. You have discarded the 4 of characters before. If another player discards the 4 of characters, you cant ron.

But you can call tsumo with a previously discarded tile.

Dont ask me why they made that rule ;_; Thanks to Basaka and Teiran who explained the rule to me. <3

The reason is because others will not be able to "read" what you're waiting for through the discarded tiles making it impossible for the others evade.
As I posted before the objective is to end with the most points at the end of Hanchan so evading and trying to stop others from making a hand is a valid and justified option.

I see Furi-Ten. No wonder. I think I have experience that also. Basically I was doing open hand and had 44 (circles) 88 (bamboo) left on my hand. Someone discard an 8 bam, so I Pon and ended having to discard one of the 4. Later someone discard another 4 Cir, but I cannot Ron it and I didn't have any 1 or 9 also. And I tought the computer was cheating. ^_^

Minor note about Furi-ten:
Tenhou will sometimes (always?) put you in permanent furiten if you ignore a winning discard by an opponent. You are normally allowed to skip an opponents discard but you cannot declare a win until 1 go around later.